What does Coral Lakes and Cohn mean for condos?

December 14th, 2012 by Jean Winters, Esq.

Boards should be aware of these issues, and ensure that their vendors are complying with the law. Case law is not on the side of indiscriminately demanding all the assessment arrearages. Less clear is whether the association can ask for associated costs and fees of assessments incurred before the certificate of title. I know that some lawyers and collection companies interpret the statute to somehow allow that, and I suspect there will be case law on that one of these days, since the bill last year to clarify the meaning didn’t pass. Therefore, expect more litigation.

Banks are becoming more aggressive about refusing to pay what they say is not owed. This is a situation where, in my opinion, a competent lawyer should be involved. There may be unusual circumstances where the bank is still liable, but that takes a legal analysis of the priority, for example, and whether the first mortgagee assigned the foreclosure bid to someone else.

In these issues, it is better to be safe than sorry. Associations who ignore these laws do so at their peril. An attorney pursuing a course of action in contravention of the statutes and case law, also do so at their own peril – this could well constitute malpractice and possibly even a bar violation.

A more productive course of action for associations concerned about these issues would be to amend their governing documents to include “Kaufman” language if such language is not already contained in the original Declaration.